A flooring quote arrives as a single figure per square metre and it is built from four things that behave completely differently: the packs of flooring, the underlay underneath them, the trim that finishes the edges, and the labour that puts it all down. The first three are materials you can price precisely; the fourth is hours. This splits them out, rounds each material to the unit it is actually sold in, and shows the four slices side by side — because the cheapest flooring is very often not the cheapest floor, and the reason is visible in the bar.
Floor, underlay and fitting
Four lines make up a flooring quote. Only one of them is the flooring.
Laminate is commonly 2.2 m² to a pack; engineered wood nearer 1.5.
Twelve dollars a square metre is a working figure for laminate; more for glued wood.
Result
Four lines, four behaviours
Flooring, underlay, trim and fitting do not move together, and that is why a single figure per square metre hides so much. Flooring scales with area and is bought in whole packs. Underlay scales with area and is bought in whole rolls, with a much coarser rounding — a roll covers fifteen square metres, so a job that needs fifteen and a half buys thirty. Trim scales with doorways, not area: a house of five small rooms has more transitions than a single large one of the same total area. Fitting scales with area but also with edges, because the cutting is where the hours go.
That last point is why the per-square-metre figure falls as the job gets bigger. The packs and the labour scale; the roll rounding and the transition count partly do not. A forty-eight-square-metre floor and four twelve-square-metre rooms of the same total area are not the same job, and the difference is entirely in the two small slices.
Why the cheap pack is often the expensive floor
Drop the pack price from thirty-eight dollars to twenty-four and the material slice falls by over three hundred dollars. Everything else stays exactly where it was: same underlay, same transitions, same fitting hours. The total falls by about eighteen percent, which is real money.
But the cheaper pack is usually thinner, with a shorter warranty and a thinner wear layer, and it very often needs a thicker underlay to compensate for subfloor irregularity — which puts money straight back into the second slice. It also tends to have a less forgiving joint, which means more waste on the cutting and more packs bought. The bar makes all of this visible: change the pack price and watch which slices move. If only one moves, the saving is real. If two move against each other, it is not.
It does four separate jobs: smoothing minor subfloor irregularity, providing a moisture barrier, reducing impact sound, and adding a little thermal insulation.
The cheap foam roll does the first. If you need acoustic performance under a regulation, or a damp-proof membrane over a concrete slab, you need the specific product, and it costs several times as much.
Measuring the floor, not the room
Measure into door reveals and into bay windows, because the floor runs there. Decide what happens at the thresholds: most fitters run the floor through the doorway and put the transition strip under the closed door, which means the reveal is floored. Subtract anything permanent that sits on the floor — a kitchen island, a fitted chimney breast — but do not subtract under a bath, which is cheaper to floor than to scribe around.
For an L-shaped or otherwise non-rectangular room, split it into rectangles and add them; the room area figure does the L and the trapezoid directly. If you are doing several rooms in the same material, the multi room figure matters, because buying the whole area as one job can save a pack against buying room by room.
A worked example
- FlooringForty-eight square metres at eight percent waste and 2.2 m² per pack is 23.6 packs, so 24 packs at $38 = $912.
- UnderlayForty-eight square metres at fifteen per roll is 3.2 rolls, so 4 rolls at $45 = $180.
- TrimThree doorway transitions at $12 = $36.
- FittingForty-eight square metres at $12 per square metre = $576.
- Total$1,704, or $35.50 per square metre — of which the flooring itself is only $19 a square metre.
Nineteen dollars a square metre of material becoming thirty-five and a half installed is the normal shape of a flooring quote, and it is worth internalising before comparing materials on shelf price alone. A five-dollar difference per square metre at the shelf is a five-dollar difference in the total; a five-dollar difference in the fitting rate is the same money and much easier to miss.
| Floor | Coverage per pack | Waste | Fitting $/m² | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laminate, floating | 2.2 m² | 8% | 10 to 14 | Fastest, and the cheapest to fit |
| Engineered wood, floating | 1.5 m² | 10% | 16 to 22 | Needs acclimatising first |
| Engineered wood, glued | 1.5 m² | 12% | 22 to 30 | Adhesive is a separate line |
| Solid wood, nailed | 1.2 m² | 12% | 28 to 40 | Sanding and sealing on top |
| Luxury vinyl tile | 2.0 m² | 10% | 14 to 20 | Subfloor must be very flat |
| Sheet vinyl | by the metre | 10% | 12 to 18 | Seams are the skill |
What is not in the number
Three things routinely sit outside a flooring quote and routinely turn up on the invoice: taking up and disposing of the old floor, preparing the subfloor, and moving furniture. Subfloor preparation is the expensive one. A concrete slab that is out of level by more than about three millimetres over two metres needs a levelling compound, which is a material, a day of drying and a line item of its own.
The skirting is the other omission. If the old skirting comes off and goes back, it is a few hours; if it is being replaced, it is priced by length and the skirting length figure gives you the metres. Beading or scotia to cover the expansion gap is priced the same way, and the expansion gap is not optional — a floating floor needs eight to ten millimetres at every edge or it will tent.
Do
- Measure into reveals, and through doorways where the floor will run.
- Check whether underlay needs to be acoustic, a moisture barrier, or both.
- Allow eight to ten millimetres expansion gap at every edge.
- Buy whole packs and whole rolls, and keep the surplus as attic stock.
- Ask separately about uplift, disposal and subfloor levelling.
Avoid
- Comparing materials on shelf price per square metre alone.
- Forgetting that underlay is sold in coarse rolls.
- Counting transitions by room rather than by doorway.
- Skipping the expansion gap and watching the floor lift.
- Assuming a subfloor is flat because it looks flat.
Where the numbers stop being true
The fitting rate is treated as a flat figure per square metre, which suits a straightforward rectangular room and underprices anything else. Staircases, landings, bays and hearths are priced by the piece rather than by the area, and a single staircase can cost as much as a room. Herringbone and diagonal layouts add a large amount of cutting and should carry a substantially higher rate.
The waste allowance is a single percentage for the whole job. Small rooms waste proportionally more than large ones, and if the floor runs through several rooms of different sizes it is worth running the waste comparison to see what the layout is really costing before fixing the figure.
Nothing here accounts for the direction the boards run, which affects both the waste and the look, nor for the fact that some products are sold only in full pallets. And the labour side is an area rate, not hours: if you want to see where the fitter's time actually goes, the labour hours figure breaks it into preparation, main work, detail and cleanup.
Questions people ask
Why is the installed price nearly double the shelf price?
Because fitting, underlay and trim sit on top of the material, and fitting alone is usually a third of the total. Nineteen dollars a square metre of laminate becomes thirty-five installed.
Do I need underlay under laminate?
Almost always, and often a specific type. It smooths the subfloor, blocks moisture from a slab and reduces impact sound. Check whether the product has it integrated.
How many transition strips do I need?
One per doorway where the new floor meets another floor or a different level. Count the doorways, not the rooms.
How much waste should I allow?
Eight percent for a straight lay in rectangular rooms, ten to twelve for diagonal or herringbone, and more in small or cut-up rooms.
Can I lay it myself and save the fitting line?
On a floating laminate in a rectangular room, many people can, and it is the largest single saving available. Budget the time honestly and rent the right tools.
What is the expansion gap for?
A floating floor expands and contracts with humidity. Without a gap at every edge it has nowhere to go and it lifts. Eight to ten millimetres, covered with beading.